


Don't Look

by Saetha



Series: O Swallow, have mercy on them [Febuwhump 2021 Prompt Fills] [15]
Category: Supernatural
Genre: Angst, Being Hunted, FebuWhump2021, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Paranoia, Purgatory, no beta we die like the quality of this show SLOWLY AT FIRST AND THEN ALL AT ONCE
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-17 00:33:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,239
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29462814
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saetha/pseuds/Saetha
Summary: “I mean that you should run. Run, and don’t look back. Let me deal with them. Let me draw their attention away. I’ll catch up with you as soon as I can.” If Benny hadn’t sounded so serious, and if Dean hadn’t been so tired, he would have laughed.“The fuck you will. You are going to die.” Dean hates how his voice breaks just a little when he says the last sentence.“Getting sentimental?” Benny laughs.*A scene from Purgatory. Dean needs a rest. Benny is there to help, even if it means he’ll get injured in the course of it.
Relationships: Benny Lafitte/Dean Winchester
Series: O Swallow, have mercy on them [Febuwhump 2021 Prompt Fills] [15]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/2138178
Comments: 4
Kudos: 23
Collections: febuwhump 2021





	Don't Look

**Author's Note:**

> I haven’t watched a single damn episode of SPN in over six years and I’m not planning on changing that (no, not even for _that_ scene). This fic has been sitting in my drafts for about as long - Febuwhump finally gave me the excuse I needed to write it! Taking a few liberties with Purgatory here. 
> 
> Today's prompt was: "Run. Don't look back."

They’ve been running through the forest for would have passed for days in the real world. Dean can feel his muscles burning, his entire body just one big ache by now. He longs to just stop, lie down, and sleep for as many hours as he can, undisturbed and without having to worry about getting ripped apart by monsters on the way. But there is no way he can escape – staying on the move, trying to find Cas, it’s the best way to evade them for now. Benny looks at him, a note of concern in his gaze.

“You’re exhausted,” he says. It isn’t a question. Dean bares his teeth at him, about to reply with a scathing rebuttal, but he stumbles and has to catch himself on a tree trunk to keep from falling down. Benny’s eyebrows draw together.

“Maybe,” Dean pants. “I don’t have any of that handy vampire blood propelling me forwards, after all.” Benny snorts.

“Believe it or not, but even we need to sleep from time to time,” he retorts. “And before you ask, yes, even here in Purgatory. I usually found a tree to climb on to do it.”

“You. Climbing trees. You didn’t hang in there like a bat, did you?” A laugh that is awfully close to hysterical seems to want to loosen itself from Dean’s chest. Benny grins, as much teeth as real amusement in the expression.

“I didn’t. Point is, if you want to sleep, you can. I will keep watch.”

“On a tree?” Dean grimaces. He can’t imagine a tree branch to be a comfortable resting place. Although better than nothing, he supposes.

“What, the simple comforts of nature aren’t enough for you?” Benny laughs. “No, there’s a place not far with some larger rocks. We can climb on top. It’s not enough to deter the monsters, but at least we’ll see them coming.”

As loath as Dean is to admit it, the idea holds a certain appeal. Sleeping will help to replenish his energy – he of all people should know that even a small moment of inattention or slowness can cost you everything in a fight. And there are more than enough fights here, especially once they, hopefully, find Castiel.

“Alright. Lead the way.” He gestures for Benny to go ahead, gripping his weapon a little more tightly in his hands. If there is one thing he has learned quickly in this place, it is that you are never safe.

They haven’t gone far when Dean can hear the tell-tale sounds of someone following them. Several someones, in fact, from the way they break through the underbrush. He tries to get in position and raise his weapon, scrounging up the last shreds of energy in his body. From the expression in Benny’s face he can tell that he isn’t exactly successful.

“It isn’t far. Straight ahead, you should make it in a few minutes if you run,” Benny points out.

“What do you mean?” Dean throws him an angry glance.

“I mean that you should run. Run, and don’t look back. Let me deal with them. Let me draw their attention away. I’ll catch up with you as soon as I can.” If Benny hadn’t sounded so serious, and if Dean hadn’t been so tired, he would have laughed.

“The fuck you will. You are going to die.” Dean hates how his voice breaks just a little when he says the last sentence.

“Getting sentimental?” Benny laughs. “I should be wounded at how little trust you are placing in me. I will be fine. Go. You are in no fighting shape.”

“You’re expecting to survive a fight against them all on your own?” Dean shakes his head.

“Survived for decades on my own before you came here. And I didn’t say anything about fighting. _Go_.” There is something in Benny’s voice that makes Dean so utterly desperate to trust him. To his surprise, he realises that he truly doesn’t want Benny to die, not here, not today – not tomorrow either, if he can help it. He throws one last glance at him before he scrapes together the last dredges of energy he has and runs.

*

Waiting is infinitely worse than fighting. Dean is sitting on the rocks that he has barely been able to crawl up on, but despite the way his body is thrumming with exhaustion, he is simply incapable of finding sleep. Not as long as Benny is still out there, possibly getting himself killed. He listens for every single sound, tries to decide whether the breaking of branches he can hear in the distance is something to be concerned about or not, wondering whether the inhuman scream he just heard belongs to Benny or those hunting him.

Dean’s fingers are clenching into fists, and he hates himself for simply sitting there, for not fighting alongside Benny, for not searching for Cas, for being here, in Purgatory at all when he should be with his brother. A sound nearby makes him scramble to his feet again, ready to defend himself.

“Relax, it’s just me.” Benny’s voice is hoarse, and he definitely looks the worse for wear when he finally scrambles up on the rocks beside him. Dean doesn’t want to betray the wave of relief that floods through him. He tells himself that it’s just relief at the sight of his only ally in this place, his only way to Cas and _out_ being alive, not at the simple pleasure of seeing Benny the _person_ again. If he repeats it enough times, he might even start believing it.

“You alright?” he asks, when Benny finally comes to a rest next to him. He looks dishevelled and distracted, and it doesn’t take a genius to figure out that something is wrong with his arm from the way he keeps it pressed to his body.

“Nothing that my body won’t be able to mend,” Benny tells him through slightly clenched teeth. It is difficult to see, on the dark fabric, but Dean is sure that there is blood dripping through his fingers.

“Let me have a look,” he says. “Your blood is bound to attract any vampire in a ten mile radius. We can at least make it harder for them track us.”

“As if your human aura wasn’t like a beacon in the dark,” Benny snorts, but he does give in to Dean’s insistent nagging eventually. There is a long gash along his arm and a bite in his shoulder, both bleeding profusely, enough to bring an ordinary human into serious trouble. Dean sighs, fishes for the discarded shirt they’d taken off a vampire a few hours earlier for this exact occasion. Well, almost exact – it had been meant for him, really, since wounds were of a much more serious concern for him. Now it’ll have to do for Benny.

Dean rips the shirt into strips.

“You don’t have a needle, don’t you.” he asks. “Or any superglue, a stapler…” Benny just snorts with laughter in reply.

“I doubt that sewing it closed would make much of a difference,” he says. “Besides, as dirty as that shirt is, I’d soon die of infection if I was human anyway.” Dean can’t really fault him for that.

“Why’d you do it?” he asks as he wraps the strips around Benny’s arm and shoulder, as tightly as he possible can. Benny’s lips are bloodless, his mouth forming a thin line as he grits his teeth against the pain. “Why’d you tell me to run?”

“To save us both?” is the incredulous answer. “I thought I had made my reasons clear.”

Dean takes another strip, gestures for Benny to hold his arm out before he begins to tie it.

“Saving me is hardly worth the price if you die,” he points out. “I thought I was supposed to be your ticket out of here. Difficult to be a ticket to somewhere if the conductor has all of a sudden abandoned the train.” Perhaps this isn’t the best metaphor he’s ever made, but it certainly gets the point across. Benny laughs.

“Perhaps I just didn’t want to watch you die,” he suggests. “After all, how much is being on a train worth if you don’t have a ticket?”

Dean punches him in the other, healthy arm then, and Benny laughs again. He sobers up quickly, however, when he looks back out into the forest.

“I’ve never liked watching people die. Not at the beginning, and even less so now.” There is the edge of an old pain in his voice, but Dean doesn’t ask. He doesn’t have a right to this man’s past, not yet at least. Once they make it through maybe, once they both manage to get out of here. He wonders at what point it became so important to him that it’s the two of them, and not just him alone. Perhaps it is the blood that they have spilled together, the countless hours of running and walking through the forest side by side, the ease with which both words and silence flow between them. Perhaps it’s the way the skin besides Benny’s eyes crinkles when he smiles, the soft humour he manages to inject into every situation.

Either way – having Benny by his side has become something important at some point over the past few days, and he doesn’t want to miss his presence, not anymore. Dean knows, with absolute surety, that he cannot watch this man die.

Benny nudges his knee with his own, ripping him out of his ruminations.

“What are you thinking about?” he asks. “You seemed far away there for a moment.” Dean shakes himself and finishes tying the last bit of fabric around Benny’s arm, watching as Benny tucks his shirt back into position.

“Nothing.” He shakes his head. “Was just thinking about what to do once we get out of here.”

A soft _ha_ escapes Benny at the statement. He leans back a little, against the rock that is conveniently jutting up behind him. The grey of the sky reflects in his eyes as he looks up and for just a moment, Dean wonders what it would be like to trace the curve of his chin with his fingers, what his beard would feel like under his touch.

“I’ll just go and sit somewhere for a while, I think,” he says eventually. “Somewhere nice. A meadow perhaps, or next to a big waterfall. Just sit there and listen. Enjoy not being hunted, not having to look out every second, not having to move.”

“Doesn’t sound like a bad idea,” Dean admits. “I’ll definitely go to the nearest diner and eat a burger. Not one of those gourmet ones, just a simple, good, roadside hamburger. Maybe have a beer to go with it, if I’m feeling particularly wild.”

Benny laughs.

“Somehow, that’s the exact answer I expected.” His gaze softens a little when he continues. “Guess I’ll have to find something to do in this new world of yours. Perhaps I’ll be flipping said burgers at the diner you’re at. Rent a little apartment somewhere. Go out occasionally, find a nice man to spend the night with…”

His voice trails off.

“Sounds good.” Dean clears his throat. There is something about the image of Benny in another man’s arms that makes his stomach clench, and he isn’t sure what to make of the feeling. “Perhaps we should team up sometime.”

“To find a nice man to spend the night with?” Benny’s voice is teasing, but there is something deeper in his eyes, something both hungry and hopeful. Dean’s throat is rather dry when he replies.

“Perhaps,” he whispers. Benny just smiles, brings up his hands and brushes and errant strand of hair from Dean’s forehead. _This is ridiculous_ , Dean thinks. They’re here, in the middle of Purgatory, hunted by monsters, probably both smelling like a cesspit and he is about to kiss a vampire. It doesn’t keep him from leaning into it when Benny presses his lips on his, however, nor does it keep him from bringing up his arm and cupping the back of Benny’s neck.

It feels good, far better than it should in a place like this, with the scent of blood and death filling the space between them. Benny is a far softer kisser than Dean would’ve guessed, and it makes him smile just a little. He thought there was nothing soft left in this place, nothing kind, but to find it here…

Benny’s gaze is hard to decipher when they part again. He rolls his shoulders a little, lets his hand linger on Dean.

“You should sleep,” he finally says, his voice rough. “I’ll keep watch. I promise.”

“Mhm”. Dean is caught between the desire to follow his suggestion and to ask for another kiss, but in the end his exhaustion wins out. He curls up as comfortably as he can on the bare rock surface, cursing when every position he finds seems to send something sticking into his back uncomfortably. Benny sighs.

“Come, put your head here,” he suggests, patting his thigh with his hand. It is a strange invitation, but Dean’s had stranger ones, and after a moment of hesitation, he accepts. Benny’s thigh is certainly more comfortable than the bare stone. Warmer, too. If he isn’t careful, he could get used to this.

It doesn’t take long for him to drop off into sleep.


End file.
